


Reunion

by phantisma



Series: Broken [10]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-06-18
Updated: 2007-06-18
Packaged: 2017-11-14 20:12:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/519083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phantisma/pseuds/phantisma
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-Broken.  Sam and Dean are reunited with their father.  Awkwardness ensues.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reunion

“You sure you’re ready for this?” Sam asked as he turned off the engine.

Dean licked his lips and rubbed his hands down the thighs of his jeans. “No?” He grinned a little and shook his head. Up until now, they’d avoided people, particularly anyone they knew. His memory wasn’t complete. He had great big holes in places that left him floundering at odd times.

He knew enough. Or so he told himself. He was dealing. He glanced at Sam. They were dealing. But this was something else. Inside that building were people who knew.

The sun was nearly down and there were a few cars in the dusty lot. “Dad doesn’t know we’re here. We can leave.” Sam offered.

They could. Dean wondered if it would be any easier a month from now…or two…a year. He shook his head. No. It wasn’t going to get easier, and there were still men out there who needed hunting.

Dean opened his door and stepped out hesitantly. Sam followed suit, taking a minute to make sure his bad leg was going to hold him. He was out of the splint, and off the crutches, but the last doctor they’d seen had given him a cane for support until he rebuilt the strength.

They started for the door together, unconsciously drifting close enough that their hips brushed as they walked. At the door, they stopped, looking at each other before purposely stepping apart. Dean held open the door, then followed Sam inside.

It was like any other bar on any other road in the middle of no where, old, dusty wood floors, tables, a jukebox in one corner providing most of the light. Ellen looked up from behind the bar, her eyes lighting up. “Boys. Your daddy wasn’t expecting you for another couple of days.”

Dean shrugged minutely to the unasked question in Sam’s eyes. He had vague memories of Ellen, enough to put a name to her face. “We…made good time, I guess.” Sam said, stepping further into the bar.

“Hungry? Your daddy’s out back with steaks on the grill.”

“I could eat.” Dean said.

Ellen pointed them through the bar and out a back door. John looked up from behind the grill, looking for all the world like he belonged there. Dean grinned. John’s face split into a huge smile and he came toward them, his arms open. Dean was the first to reach him, engulfed in his arms, then John’s hand was reaching out for Sam, pulling him in with them.

“I’ve missed you boys.”

“We missed you too, Dad.” Dean said, thumping John’s back. It was true, despite the awkward drop in his stomach and the way Sam didn’t really look John in the face.

“Are you guys safe here?” Sam asked suddenly, looking around them as if he expected someone to jump out at them.

John shrugged and went back to his grill. “As safe as we are anywhere, I suppose.” He poked at the meat on the grill and looked up. “If Ash and Andrew think we’re all dead, they won’t be looking for us. If they are looking for us, they know enough about us to find us. Rather be someplace I’m familiar with.”

Dean nodded, though it didn’t sound like his father. His father was a “take the fight to them” kind of guy. “Bobby?”

John took a long drink from his beer. “He’s hunting. Left a while ago. Haven’t heard from him. Gabe and Caleb are out hunting too.”

“Together?” Sam asked.

Dean watched his father smother a smirk and nod again. “Yeah, apparently.”

“Wait.” Dean held up his hand. “You mean…together. Like…Gabe?”

John poked at the meat some more. “Yeah…but hey, he doesn’t think anyone knows, so if he shows up, don’t give him grief.”

Gabe…and Caleb. Dean shook his head and scratched the back of his neck. That was something he’d never see coming. “Really?” he asked before Sam swatted him.

They were quiet for a minute. Sam was chewing on his lower lip, a bad habit that had gotten worse recently. Dean was about the say something when John cleared his throat. “How’s the leg, Sam?”

Sam shifted his weight around, as if proving to himself that it would hold his weight again. “Better. Still working on it.”

“Good. It was a bad break.”

“He walks on it too much.” Dean said, rolling his eyes when Sam glared at him. “Well, you do. That doctor in Billings said you shouldn’t.”

John’s eyes narrowed at Dean, then moved to Sam. Something passed between them that Dean couldn’t follow and he sighed. “Whatever. I’m going to pee.”

 

Sam was still protecting him. Not exactly hiding things, but not all forthcoming and honest either. It was beginning to make him crazy. Two months had passed, and he remembered enough to understand why his mind had hidden it all away, to hate himself…to feel as though maybe dying wasn’t such a bad idea…but all he had to do was look at Sam to know he could never…because Sam…

Dean shook his head and tried not to follow that thought. He sighed and leaned against the wall outside the bathroom. He wasn’t hiding weapons any more, because it wasn’t really safe to let Sam wander around unarmed, but he watched. He watched closely, paid attention to every shifting mood.

“Hey…you okay?” Ellen’s voice startled him and Dean looked up.

“Just…thinking.”

Her hand was warm as it brushed down his arm. She nodded, her eyes narrowing a little before she smiled. “If you need anything, I’m in the kitchen.”

Dean watched her go, then followed. “Actually…is there a motel or something around? We’ve been on the road a few days. Sam could use a real bed.”

She smiled brightly. “No need for a motel. You boys can stay here. I’ve got Jo making up one of the spare rooms.”

“We wouldn’t want to impose—“

“Nonsense.” She stirred something on the stove. “You’re staying here. Your daddy deserves some time with you.”

“Yeah, cause that isn’t awkward.” Dean said without thinking.

Ellen turned, sweeping knowing eyes over him. “Awkward or not, he’s your father, and he’s been worried sick about the two of you. You’ll deal with it.”

Dean’s lips quirked up in a half smile and he nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Good. Now, don’t just stand there, lend me a hand.”

 

 

 

Dinner had been done for more than an hour. Jo and Ellen had left them to go work the bar. Sam sat sullenly for a while, then excused himself to go to bed early…leaving Dean and his father and a bottle of whiskey.

There were only a few others in the place, and they kept to themselves. A couple of times Dean thought he felt eyes on him, but when he looked around everyone was minding their own business. He sighed low and soft and John lifted his glass. “So how is Sam really?”

Dean lifted his glass as well, downed the shot, savoring the way it burned into him. It made the moment real. “Better. Not good, but better.” He made a face and reached for the bottle, pouring more for both of them. “He…he’s fucked up, Dad.” Dean ran a hand over his face. “He kind of fell apart on me at that cabin.”

“Fell apart? How?”

Dean wasn’t sure he could answer that and look at his father. He swallowed more of the whiskey instead and licked his lips. “He wanted me to kill him.” He said it softly, glancing aside at John to be sure he’d heard him.

John exhaled slowly. “You told me once before that he wanted to die…I didn’t know what to make of it. I…honestly, I thought…I was more worried about you.”

Dean nodded, pouring more whiskey and lifting the glass. “You always have been.” He threw back the shot and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand.

“Dean, that’s not fair—“

“No? You want to talk about fair, Dad?” Dean put his glass back on to the table and reached for the bottle. John pulled it away.

“I think you’ve had enough.”

“Fuck you.” Dean grabbed the bottle and pulled it away, standing and staggering away from the table.

“Dean!” John was following, but Dean didn’t care, he headed for the front door. The night was warm, the air kind of choked with dust. Dean took a swig from the bottle and leaned against the hood of the Impala.

“What is your problem?” John asked when he’d caught up.

“Do you have any idea what he went through?”

“I have a pretty good idea, Dean.”

Dean shook his head. “No. Not the rape, not…not that. Before that.”

“What are you talking about?”

“To find me. Do you know?”

“Only what he told me. Why?”

“It isn’t the stuff that came after that’s got him so fucked up, Dad, it’s what he had to do to get to me. Eating him alive.”

John crossed his arms and stared down at him. “Are you going to tell me?”

Dean drank and shook his head pointing a finger at his father. “Where the fuck were you? How could you let him do that alone?”

“Do what alone, Dean?”

“Hunt. Hunt like that.”

“Like what?”

“Fuck, Dad. He’d been out of the fight for so long…and he hated it…and he was so desperate. And you left him…you let him go alone.”

“I didn’t know Dean.”

“Bullshit.” Dean stood and set the bottle on the hood. “You knew a lot more than you’re willing to admit.”

“Oh? You psychic now?”

Dean made a face. “I think you knew about me and Sam…on some subconscious level anyway. That’s why we fought so badly after he left. You didn’t consciously admit it, but you were disgusted by it, and you couldn’t blame Sam because he was gone, and you couldn’t blame me because I was still there.”

He was starting to feel the whiskey as more than a pleasant warming sensation. “You sound like some goddamn psychologist.” John said, grabbing the bottle and turning to go back inside.

“Don’t you walk away.” Dean said, reaching out to grab him. “You need to know.”

“You just told me I did know.”

Dean pulled him back and John whirled. “No. You don’t. And if we’re gonna find a way to make Sammy okay again you have to.”

John reached out, his big hand coming down hard on Dean’s shoulder. “So tell me.”

Dean rolled his eyes. He was drunk, and it probably wasn’t the best condition to be having this conversation with his father. “He…you know he killed people…right?” John nodded and Dean echoed the motion. “That was just the beginning. There was…Candy…Candace…the truck driver. She’s the one who drugged me…Sam…he squeezed her, fucked her and fucked her over. She’s dead.”

“Sam killed her?”

Dean shook his head. “No…left her for them. That was before the demon.”

“The demon he made a deal with?”

Dean squinted up at him. “Is that what he told you? Fuck. Sammy! Fuck.” Dean shoved off his father, turning and staggering back to the Impala. “His deal was basically possession in return for information.”

“Possession?” John’s boots crunched on the gravel. “Dean, are you saying that your brother—“ John shook his head.

“You can’t…you can’t judge him…he can’t handle it…it’s tearing him up.”

“It should. He knows better. I raised you both better.”

Dean couldn’t have stopped himself if he were sober. He didn’t even realize what he was doing until John was on his ass in the gravel. “Fuck you. Just…fuck you Dad. You should have been there. He needed you. He needed his father. He needed a friend. And maybe he’s so fucked up because he **did** know better and didn’t think he had a choice.”

“There’s always a choice.” John said, picking himself up and brushing dust from his jeans.

Dean shook his head. “No. No. He knew. He knew by then what was happening…he was crazy, desperate.”

“Nothing justifies—“

“Stop. Just stop.” Dean raised his fist again. “He thinks we’ll hate him. It took everything I had to convince him that I didn’t after he told me. He hates himself. Not just for the possession, but for everything he did while the demon was inside him and everything he did after. It was bad.”

John sighed explosively and paced away. “What is it you want from me, Dean?”

“I want…” Dean shook his head. “You have to forgive him…all of it. You have to…you have to love him.” He moved closer. “He needs you to be his father. He needs to hear you say it.” Dean grabbed his father by the lapel of his jacket. “Where the fuck were you, Dad?” Dean whispered, clinging to his father.

“You’re drunk.” John said after a long moment of expectant silence. “Let’s get you in to bed.”

Dean knew he was drunk, but somehow the idea of John putting him to bed made him angry. “I can do it.” He pulled away and almost ended up on his face in the dirt. His father’s hand closed around the waistband of his jeans and hauled him up.

“Let me help you.” Dean looked at him, at the red mark on his face where he’d hit him, at the hurt in his eyes. This wasn’t the reunion he’d wanted. He’d wanted things to be normal. He’d wanted the comfort of the time before Sam left, when they were together, a family. He’d wanted his father to make it better…to fix it like he always had when they were little.

But they weren’t little anymore…and what needed fixing wasn’t going to be dealt with by bandages and salt lines and strong arms holding them until the scary things all retreated into the shadows.

The shadows were inside them now.

Slowly he nodded and let his father support him.

They made their way back through the bar and to the back rooms. Outside the door, John stopped them, pressed Dean against the wall. “You can make it the rest of the way?”

Dean nodded, but didn’t let go. “Maybe…you should help anyway.”

John didn’t respond, just slipped his arm around Dean’s shoulders and eased open the door. He kept a hand on Dean to steady him as he kicked off his shoes and dropped his jeans, then Dean slid into bed beside Sam who groaned a little as the mattress moved. “Thanks.” Dean whispered and John smiled down at him.

Almost in slow motion, John leaned over and kissed Sam’s forehead, then Dean’s. “Night boys.”

Dean waited until the door was closed before rolling to his side and pulling Sam up against him. He pressed his lips to the back of Sam’s neck, and just like he had every single night since that day with the gun, he whispered, “I’m here Sammy. I’ve got you.”

Just like every night, Sam pulled forward, pulled away, before settling back against Dean. “Love you Dean,” he whispered, though Dean was pretty sure he was sleeping.

“Love you too, Sammy,” he whispered back. Maybe his father’s arms couldn’t keep the scary things out anymore, but he liked to think that maybe his arms were enough to keep Sam from leaving him again.


End file.
